Madeline Matheson is eight months pregnant and determined to deliver her unborn child, Grace, naturally. When an accident leaves Grace dead inside her, Madeline insists on carrying the baby’s corpse to term. Weeks later, when Madeline delivers, the baby miraculously returns to life… With an appetite. (Leomax Entertainment)
Review:
With all the derivative and brainless dreck that comes out every year in the Horror Genre, it’s always nice to see a film that operates as a good FILM as well as a good HORROR story. Â Paul Solet‘s debut film, Grace is a slow moving, disgusting, horrific, uncomfortable and disturbing film. Â It’s also one of the most beautiful films I’ve seen this year.
Ron Perlman stars as Ed Pollack, an oil company employee who arrives in Alaska. He’s eager to take some of the tundra’s oil bounty, but the rising temperatures have an environmental scientist (James LeGros) worried about the irreparable damage they could do to the Alaskan wilderness. Soon things start to go wrong at their camp, and one of their one dies mysteriously. Whether it’s cabin fever, poisonous gas, or supernatural forces, something is threatening the camp and the people who live there. (Rottentomatoes.com)
Review:
The Last Winteris a slow burn, claustrophobic thriller set in the remote Alaskan wilderness. Â It’s not a thrill-a-minute story, but one that unfolds in a logical yet unsettling way. Â What makes The Last Winterwork is not necessarily the effects or scares. Â The character development is strong and the film makers rely on our relationship with the characters to build the story’s main tension. Â Not many horror movies these days trust their audiences enough and burn through plot to get to the scares. Â The Last Winter is a genuinly creepy tale, but is no crap-your-pants frightfest.
Between his tax problems and his legal battle with his wife for the custody of his daughter, these are hard times for the action movie star who finds that even Steven Seagal has pinched a role from him! In JCVD, Jean-Claude Van Damme returns to the country of his birth to seek the peace and tranquility he can no longer enjoy in the United States.
Review:
Can a movie change your perception of an aging actor? Bruce Campbell gave us fans an homage movie with My Name Is Bruce. Stallone brought back Rambo and Rocky Balboa. Mickey Rourke turned in a heart felt and amazing performance with The Wrestler. Who’s next? Schwartzenegger? Seagal? Nope. It’s Jean-Claude Van Damme. And he’s turned in the performance of a lifetime with JCVD.
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist is a comedy about two people thrust together for one hilarious, sleepless night of adventure in a world of mix tapes, late-night living, and, live, loud music. Nick (Michael Cera) frequents New York’s indie rock scene nursing a broken heart and a vague ability to play the bass.
Norah (Kat Dennings) is questioning pretty much all of her assumptions about the world. Though they have nothing in common except for their taste in music, their chance encounter leads to an all-night quest to find a legendary band’s secret show and ends up becoming the first date in a romance that could change both their lives.(Amazon)
Review:
Teen comedies are really hit or miss for me these days. Some are smart and funny (Superbad) while others leave me scratching my head with how out of touch with reality they are (High School Musical). Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist does a great job of being mostly rooted in reality with a believable (enough) love story. What it does right is make me miss the days when I used to go to shows and stay out all night with no real responsibilities. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist is a smart, funny and sweet little movie.
It’s the end of yet another night at Hastings Supermarket, an idyllic family grocery store in Buck Lake, Arizona. But the normal monotony of rounding up shopping carts and settling out the cash drawers is broken at 11:07pm, just before closing when a group of masked and armed-to-the-teeth militants invades the store, immediately killing several of the employees and shoppers and holding the rest hostage.
Though the hostage-takers at first appear to be robbers or terrorists, they reveal themselves to be a cadre of rogue scientists that has discovered and tracked an alien infestation to this store on this night, and they are determined to find out which of the survivors are extraterrestrials and end the invasion at any cost. (Trailer Addict)
Review:
So, the award for the lamest title of a good movie goes to … Alien Raiders.  I mean, seriously, this is where studio intervention is a bad thing.  Originally titled Supermarket (I know, not much of a better title), Alien Raiders is a movie that is way better than the title suggests.  When I first heard of this movie, I was thinking it would be a low-grade Sci Fi Channel original crap-fest.  But, then I started hearing some good things and decided to check it out.  Alien Raiders has no right to be as good as it is.  It’s a blast.
Slumdog Millionaire is the story of Jamal Malik, an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who is about to experience the biggest day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India’s “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?â€
But when the show breaks for the night, police arrest him on suspicion of cheating; how could a street kid know so much? Desperate to prove his innocence, Jamal tells the story of his life in the slum where he and his brother grew up, of their adventures together on the road, of vicious encounters with local gangs, and of Latika, the girl he loved and lost. Each chapter of his story reveals the key to the answer to one of the game show’s questions.
Intrigued by Jamal’s story, the jaded Police Inspector begins to wonder what a young man with no apparent desire for riches is really doing on this game show?
When the new day dawns and Jamal returns to answer the final question, the Inspector and sixty million viewers are about to find out… (Trailer Addict)
Review:
It’s not every day a movie with no stars and small budget has the success that Danny Boyle’s newest movie Slumdog Millionaire has had.  This film came out of nowhere, with very little marketing and is now winner of the coveted Best Picture Oscar (along with numerous more Oscars including Best Director for Danny Boyle).  Slumdog Millionare is one of the most memorable, beautiful and affecting movies I’ve seen in a long time.
My Name Is Bruce is the heroic struggle of a small mining town (Gold Lick, Oregon) to rid itself of a vengeful monster. Guan-di (James J. Peck), the Chinese god of war and protector of the dead, has been unleashed by cemetery desecrating teenagers to protect the graves of Chinese miners lost in a deadly cave-in of yesteryear.
The deadly demon’s mission is to eradicate all those who transgressed against the tomb (relatives included), which is virtually the entire population of Gold Lick. The inbred community has to find a solution so Jeff (Taylor Sharpe), the sole survivor of a deadly Guan-Di encounter, takes it upon himself to kidnap his idol, Bruce Campbell (Bruce Campbell), star of countless B-movie horror films, and recruit him to be their local savior. (Trailer Addict)
Review:
I love me some Bruce Campbell.  My first introduction to him was in the 3rd Evil Dead movie, Army of Darkness.  Yes, I was young and impressionable.  I remember seeing the Army of Darkness trailer with it’s skeleton army and heavy metal background music.  Once I saw the introduction of his chain saw hand, I knew this was a movie I had to check out.
When Leon Kaufman’s (Bradley Cooper) latest body of work – a collection of provocative, nighttime studies of the city and its inhabitants — earns the struggling photographer interest from prominent art gallerist Susan Hoff (Brooke Shields), she propels him to get grittier and show the darker side of humanity for his upcoming debut at her downtown art space.
Believing he’s finally on track for success, Leon’s obsessive pursuit of dark subject matter leads him into the path of a serial killer, Mahogany (Vinnie Jones), the subway murderer who stalks late-night commuters — ultimately butchering them in the most gruesome ways imaginable.
With his concerned girlfriend Maya (Leslie Bibb) fearing for his life, Leon’s relentless fascination with Mahogany lures him further and further into the bowels of the subways and ultimately into an abyss of pure evil – inadvertently pulling Maya right along with him.
Midnight Meat Train is directed by critically acclaimed Japanese director Ryûhei Kitamura (Versus, Azumi) in his American debut, and based on legendary horror writer Clive Barker’s popular, eponymous short story from his classic Books of Blood collection. The screenplay was adapted by Jeff Buhler. (Trailer Addict)
Review:
Clive Barker is one of the few Horror Genre storytellers that genuinly creeps me out. As a director he’s responsible for some genuine creep-fests (Hellraiser,Lord of Illusions) that are extremely creepy and visually stunning. As a writer, I haven’t given Clive Barker a chance. All I know whenever his work is adapted, it’s been hit or miss (Candyman).
Five teenage snowboarders are forced to spend the night in a mysteriously abandoned ski lodge. Except somebody – or something – already lives there. It is huge, savage and unstoppable…and now it’s pissed off. But if you think this is going to be the usual ‘trapped teens stalked by a maniac’ movie, you’re dead wrong.
From the first chilling kill to the final horrific twist, prepare yourself for the smart, intense and award-winning European sensation that has terrified audiences around the world and put the edge back into the body-count genre.
Review:
Slasher movies are never going to win any awards for plot or characterization.  What separates the multitude of films in this sub-genre of Horror is the execution.  The most recent Friday the 13th remake comes to mind as well as it’s classic original and films like John Carpenter’s Halloween.  Young adults or teens stalked by unstoppable killer.
After the supposed death of her son at a summer camp, a mother begins to kill the camp employees. After her death at the hands of the remaining employees, her son returns to continue her bloody work.
Review:
10:15pm, on Friday the 13th 2009 I sat in a packed theater filled with 75% black hoodie and T-shirt wearing males. Â The remaining 25% was comprised of high school guys with unsuspecting girlfriend in tow. Â Oh, and one parent who thought they could hid their infant (hearing a baby crying during a horror flick is really strange).
